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ARMENIA 

A Leading Factor in the Winning 
of the War 

By GARO PASDERMADJIAN, D. Sc. 

(Armen Garo) 

Ex-Deputy in Turk Parliament; Former Commander 2nd Battalion 

Armenian Volunteers in Caucasus; Special Envoy to 

America of His Holiness, the Catholicos 



THIS book contains the authentic record of the most amaz- 
ing and stirring chapter of the history of the Great War. It 
tells the story of the fighting men of Armenia, who, undismayed 
by the base treachery of the Czarist bureaucracy and unafraid 
of a multitude of enemies, volunteered in legions to the service 
of the cause of western democracies; saved the Russian 
Caucasus front, in 1914 and 1915, from certain collapse, there- 
by making it possible for Russia to concentrate her forces 
against Germany and Austria; and again, following the break- 
down of the Russian army in 1917, single-handed, faced the 
concerted pressure of German-led Turk divisions and Turk- 
Tartar-Kurd hordes, stretching from the Black Sea to the 
Caspian, and thus dealt a fatal blow at the last remaining hope 
of the common enemy for victory, which he sought in the 
East. A greater deed of heroism no nation has ever played in 
recorded history. It does credit to the best traditions and the 
finest impulses of the race. It imposes a very great duty upon 
America and the Allied democracies. 




OCT -6" 19t g 



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ARMENIA 

A LEADING FACTOR IN THE WINNING OF THE WAR 

By Garo Pasdermadjian, D. Sc. 
(Translated from Armenian by A. Torossian) 

In the early days of August, 19 14, when civilized nations took up arms 
against the German aggression, only three of the smaller nations of 
Europe and the Near East had the courage, from the very first days of 
the war, to stand by the Allies without any bargaining or dickering, and 
they still stand at their posts on the ramparts, in spite of the immense 
sacrifices they have already made. 

The first member of this heroic triad was brave Serbia, which was 
the first victim of Austrian aggression, and whose sons, after four years 
of heroic struggle, are about to regain their lost native land. The second 
member was little Belgium, whose three weeks of heroic resistance delayed 
the German advance of 19 14 and enabled gallant France to crown with 
success the historic battle of the Marne. The third member of this heroic 
triad was the Armenian people who, for four years and without an organ- 
ized government or a national army, played the same role in the Near 
East by preventing the Turco-German advance toward the interior of 
Asia as the Belgians played in the West by arresting the march of Ger- 
many towards Paris. The Armenians, however, paid a higher price to 
the God of War than either the Belgians or the Serbs. Out of four and 
one-quarter millions of Armenians living in Turkey and Russia at the 
beginning of the war, scarcely three millions remain at the present time. 
What were the conditions under which the Armenians sided with the Allies, 
and why were they forced to bear so great a sacrifice for their cause? 

Turkish and Russian Proposals to the Armenians in 1914 

In the beginning of this world conflagration, in 19 14, both the Russian 
and the Turkish governments officially appealed to various Armenian 
national organizations with many promises in order to secure the active 
participation of the Armenians in the military operations against each 
other, the principal stage of which would be Armenia itself. Both 
Turkey and Russia were very anxious to win the co-operation of the 
Armenians, because, judging from their past experience, they were con- 
vinced that without such co-operation they would not be able to accom- 
plish the much desired military successes on the Armenian plateau. 



With such aims in view, Russia, through Count Varantzoff Dashkoff, 
informed the Armenian National Council (then in existence at Tiflis) that 
if the Armenians would unreservedly give their support to the Russian 
armies during the course of the war, Russia would grant autonomy to the 
six Armenian vilayets. The Russian Armenians, however, through bitter 
experience, knew very well what little practical value could be attached to 
the promises of Russian Czarism. During the course of the 19th century at 
three different times the Russians had made similar promises to the 
Armenians when they waged war with Turkey and Persia, and, although 
the self-sacrificing co-operation of the Russian Armenians enabled the 
Russians to capture the districts of Elizavetpol, Erivan and Kars in 1806, 
in 1828, and again in 1878, at the end of these wars their specific promises 
to the Armenians were promptly forgotten. But this time the Armenians 
knew that Russia was not alone; the two great liberal nations of the 
West, France and England, were her Allies. After long and weighty 
consultation, with their hopes pinned on France and England, the 
Armenians resolved to aid the Russian armies in every possible way. 

While Russian diplomacy was in the midst of these negotiations 
at Tiflis. during the last days of August, 19 14, a Turkish mission of 
twenty-eight members (the object of which was to organize a Pan-Islamic 
and a Pan-Turanian movement among all the races of the Near East 
against Russia and her Allies) left Constantinople for Armenia. The 
leaders of that mission were Omar Nadji Bey, Dr. Bahaeddin Shakir, and 
Lieutenant Hilmy, all of them very influential members of the/'Committee 
of Union and Progress." The mission included representatives of all the 
Eastern races, such as the Kurds, Persians, Georgians, Chechens, Lezgies, 
Circassians, and the Caucasian Tartars, but not the Armenians. During 
those same days the annual Congress of the Armenian National Organiza- 
tion was in session at Erzeroum. In the name of the Turkish government 
the above mentioned mission appealed to the Armenian Organization with 
the following proposition: 

"If the Armenians, — the Turkish as well as the Russian Armenians — 
would give active co-operation to the Turkish armies, the Turkish govern- 
ment under a German guarantee would promise to create after the war an 
autonomous Armenia (made up of Russian Armenia and the three Turkish 
vilayets of Erzeroum, Van, and Bitlis) under the suzerainty of the Otto- 
man empire." 

The Turkish delegates, in order to persuade the Armenians to accept 
this proposal, informed them also that they (the Turks) had already won 
the co-operation of the Georgians and the Tartars, as well as the moun- 
taineers of the northern Caucasus, and therefore the non-compliance of the 
Armenians under such circumstances would be very stupid and fraught 
with danger for them on both sides of the boundary between Turkey and 
Russia. In spite of these promises and threats, the executive committee 
of the Dashnaktzoutiun (Federation) informed the Turks that the 



Armenians could not accept the Turkish proposal, and on their behalf 
advised the Turks not to participate in the present war, which would be 
disastrous to the Turks themselves. The Armenian members of this 
parley were the well-known publicist, Mr. E. Aknouni, the representative 
from Van, Mr. A. Vramian, and the director of the Armenian schools in 
the district of Erzeroum, Mr. Rostom. Of these Mr. Aknouni and Mr. 
Vramian were treacherously killed a few months later for their audacious 
refusal of the Turkish proposals, while Mr. Rostom luckily escaped the 
murderous plots against his life. 

The hold retort of the Armenians to the Turkish proposal mentioned 
above intensely angered the Turks, and from that very day the extermina- 
tion of the Armenians was determined upon by the Turkish government. 
And in reality, arrests and persecutions within the Armenian vilayets began 
in the early part of September, 19 14, a mon<-h and a half before the com- 
mencement of the Russo-Turkish war. 'xne speed of the persecutions 
gained greater momentum as the months rolled by and tens of villages in 
different parts of Armenia were subjected to fire and sword. In the dis- 
trict of Van alone, during February and March of 19 15, twenty-four 
villages were razed to their foundations and their populations put to the 
sword. Early in April of the same year, they attempted the massacre of 
the inhabitants of the city of Van as well, but the Armenians took up arms, 
and, guided by their brave leader, Aram, defended their lives and property 
for a whole month, until the Armenian volunteers from Erivan with Russian 
soldiers came to the rescue and saved them from the impending doom. 
This resistance on the part of the inhabitants of Van gave the Turkish 
government a pretext to deport in June and July of the same year the entire 
Armenian population of Turkish Armenia, with the pretended intention 
of transporting them to Mesopotamia, but with the actual determination 
to exterminate them. Out of the million and a half of Armenians deported, 
scarcely 400,000 to 500,000 reached the sandy deserts of Syria and Meso- 
potamia, and most of these were women, old men, and children, who were 
subjected in those desolate regions to the mortal pangs of famine. More 
than a million defenceless Armenians were murdered at the hands of Turk- 
ish soldiers and Turkish mobs. The gang of robbers, headed by Talaat 
and Enver, resorted to this fiendish means to eliminate the Armenian ques- 
tion once for all, because the Armenians had had the courage to oppose 
their Pan-Turanian policies. The barbarities of Jenghiz Khan and Tamer- 
lane pale in comparison with the savageries which were perpetrated 
upon the Turkish Armenians in the summer of 19 15 during this whole- 
sale massacre organized by the Turkish government. Mr. Morgenthau, 
who was the American ambassador at Constantinople during those fright- 
ful months, has proclaimed all these atrocities by his authentic pen to the 
civilized nations. This was the price which the Armenian people paid 
within the boundaries of Turkey for refusing to aid the Turco-German 
policies. 



Now let us see what positive services from a military point of view 
this same martyred people rendered to the allied cause on both sides of the 
Turco-Russian boundary line. 



Military Services Rendered by the Armenians on the 

Caucasian Front 

In order to have an adequate comprehension of the events which took 
place on the Caucasian front, it would be well to bear in mind that all the 
peoples of Trans-Caucasia, including the Armenians, felt great enmity 
toward the government of the Czar, whose treatment of them in the past 
had been very tyrannical and very brutal. For this very reason, the Turco- 
German propaganda had easily won the sympathy of nearly 3,000,000 
Tartars and 2,000,000 Georgians. The dream of the Tartars was to join 
the Ottoman Turks and re-establish the old great Tartar Empire, which 
was to extend from Constantinople to Samarkant, including all the lands 
of the Caucasus and Trans-Caspia, while the Georgians, through their al- 
liance with the Turco-Germans, hoped to regain their lost independence in 
the western Caucasus. Only the 2,000,000 Armenians of the Caucasus 
were not influenced by the Turco-German propaganda, although they hated 
the Russian despotism as much as their neighbors. But, on the other hand, 
having very close acquaintance with the psychology of the Turkish race 
and with their ulterior aspirations, the Armenians had the political wisdom 
and courage to put aside their petty quarrels with Russian Czarism and 
throw in their lot with the allied cause. 

These were the circumstances under which the mobilization of 19 14 took 
place in the Caucasus. The Armenian reservists, about 160,000 in number, 
gladly responded to the call, for the simple reason that they were to fight 
the arch enemy of their historic race. Besides the regular soldiers, nearly 
20,000 volunteers expressed their readiness to take up arms against the 
Turks. The Georgians, on the other hand, answered the call very reluct- 
antly, and the Armenian-Georgian relations were greatly strained from the 
very beginning. The attitude of the Armenians toward the despotic Rus- 
sian government was incomprehensible to the Georgians, who thought that, 
because the Armenians sided with Russia, — the oppressor of all the Cau- 
casian races, — they must be unfriendly to the Georgians. Many Georgian 
young men crossed the border from Batoum, went to Trebizond, and pre- 
pared bands of volunteers under the leadership of Prince Abashize in 
order to aid the Turks. As to the Tartars, not being subject to draft, they 
assumed the role of spectators on the one hand, and on the other used 
every means to arm themselves, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the 
Turks. The great land-owners of the provinces of Erivan, Elizavetpol 
and Baku began to accumulate enormous stores, and prepare a huge reserve 
of sugar and wheat. The price of one rifle, which was 100 rubles ($50), 



rose to 1500 rubles ($750). Through Persia, the Germans took to the 
Caucasus great sums of money in order to push forward the task of arming 
the Tartars from the very first days of the war. Great numbers of young 
Tartars went to Persia and joined the Turkish armies. And all this was 
carried on in broad daylight under the very eyes of the short-sighted Rus- 
sian bureaucracy. 

The Russian administration of the Caucasus was more concerned with 
the Armenian "danger'' and had no time to pay attention to the Georgians 
and the Tartars. Was it not a fact that officially no Georgian or Tartar 
question was placed on the diplomatic table, whereas the Armenian ques- 
tion was there? And for that very reason, before the commencement 
of the Russo-Turkish hostilities, the second and third army corps of the 
Caucasian army, the majority of which were Armenians, were transferred 
to the German front and were replaced by Russian army corps. Moreover, 
out of the 20,000 Armenians who volunteered for service, only 7,000 
were given arms; the authorities objected that they had no rifles ready, 
while a few months later the same administration distributed 24,000 
rifles to the Kurds in Persia and in the district of Van. It is needless to 
say that all the Armenian officers and generals were transferred to the 
Western front; only one Armenian general was left as a specimen on the 
entire Caucasian front, General Nazarbekoff, and he was transferred to 
Persia, away from the Armenian border. Under these trying conditions 
commenced the Russo-Turkish war and the Armenian-Russian co-operation 
on the Caucasian front in the autumn of 19 14. But, in spite of this sus- 
picious and crafty attitude assumed by the Russian administration, the 
Armenian inhabitants of the Caucasus spared nothing in their power for 
the success of the Russian armies. In the three main unsuccessful Turkish 
offensives the battalions of Armenian volunteers played a great role. Let 
us now see just what took place during those offensives. 

Armenian Volunteers Smother the First Great Turkish Offensive, 
and Save the Russian Army from Certain Disaster 

The first serious Turkish offensive took place in the beginning of De- 
cember, 1 9 14, when Enver Pasha attempted to reach Tiflis by shattering 
the right wing of the Russian army. The Turkish "Napoleon" was anxious 
to connect his name with that great victory which seemed certain to his 
puny brain. And with that very purpose in view he boarded Goeben, the 
German cruiser, and left Constantinople, amid great demonstrations. He 
reached Erzeroum in three days, thanks to the German automobiles which 
were ready for him at different stops between Trebizond and the frontier. 
The offensive was planned with great care, and had great chances of suc- 
cess if all the three wings of the Turkish army had reached their objectives 
on time. Enver had under his command three army corps — the ninth, the 

5 



tenth and the eleventh. The ninth army corps was to advance toward 
Ardahan by way of Olti and from there to march on Tiflis by way of Akhal- 
kalag, when it should receive word that the tenth army corps had already 
captured Sarikamish and cut off the retreat of the Russian army of 60,000 
men; while the eleventh army corps was to attack the centre of the Rus- 
sian army near the frontier. The ninth army corps, in three days and 
without difficulty, reached Ardahan, where the local Moslem inhabitants 
assisted it in every possible way. The tenth army corps, during its march 
from Olti to Sarikamish, suffered a delay of twenty-four hours in the 
Barduz Pass, due to the heroic resistance of the fourth battalion of the 
Armenian volunteers which made up the Russian reserve. This delay of 
twenty-four hours enabled the Russians to concentrate a sufficient force 
around Sarikamish (which had been left entirely undefended) and thereby 
force back the ninth corps of the Turkish army. The Turks were so cer- 
tain of the success of their plan that they had no transports with them and 
no extra supply of provisions. Opposite Sarikamish, where a battle was 
waged for three days and three nights, the Turks suffered a loss of 30,000 
men, mostly due to cold rather than to the Russian arms. But if the 
Turkish army corps had reached Sarikamish twenty-four hours earlier, 
as was expected, it would have confronted only one battalion of Russian 
reserves, and that without artillery. This was the invaluable service rend- 
ered to the Russian army by the fourth battalion of the Armenian volun- 
teers under the command of the matchless Keri. Six hundred Armenian 
veterans fell in the Barduz Pass, and at such a high price saved the 60,000 
Russians from being taken prisoners by the Turks. This great service 
of the Armenians to the Russian army was announced at the time by Enver 
Pasha himself, when he returned to Constantinople immediately after his 
defeat. From that time on the government at Constantinople laid the 
blame of its defeat at the door of the Armenians, as a preliminary step in 
its preparation for the execution of its already-planned massacres of the 
Armenian people. 

Armenians Defeat the Second Turkish Offensive 

After their defeat at Sarikamish, the Turks attempted in April of 19 15 
to turn the extreme left wing of the Russian army by marching to Joulfa 
through Persia, and from there (in case of success) moving on to Baku, 
with the hope that the Tartar inhabitants of the eastern Caucasus would 
immediately join them and enable them to cut the only communicating 
line of railroad of the Russians, and thereby force the entire Russian 
army to retreat toward the northern Caucasus. The work of the intelli- 
gence department of the Turks was very well organized, especially as the 
Tartar and Georgian officers of the Caucasus rendered them invaluable 
services. The Turks knew very well that the Russians in Persia at that 

6 



time had only one brigade of Russian troops under the command of the 
Armenian General Nazarbekoft and one battalion of Armenian volunteers 
scattered throughout Salmast and Urmia, while their own army was made 
up of one regular and well-drilled division of troops (sent especially from 
Constantinople) under the command of Khalil Bey and nearly 10,000 
Kurds. Khalil Bey with his superior forces captured the city of Urmia 
in a few hours (taking prisoners nearly a thousand Russians) and victor- 
iously marched on Salmast. Here took place one of the fiercest battles 
between the Armenians and the Turks. The first battalion of the Armenian 
volunteers, under the command of the veteran Andranik, strongly enforced 
in its trenches, repulsed the attacks of Khalil Bey for three days contin- 
uously, until the Russians, with the newly-arrived forces from the Cau- 
casus, were able to put to flight the army of Khalil Bey. Thirty-six hun- 
dred Turkish soldiers lay dead before the Armenian trenches in the course 
of those three days. 

In that very month of April, while Khalil Bey was confidently attempt- 
ing, as we have seen, to surround the left wing of the Russian army in 
Persia, over in Van the Armenians had taken up arms in self-defence, and 
for one whole month were fighting another division of Turkish troops 
and thousands of Kurds until the first days of May, when three other 
battalions of Armenian volunteers, under the command of General Niko- 
laeff, came to the rescue, riding a distance of 250 kilometers (155 miles) 
— from Erivan to Van — in ten days. For one who is acquainted with the 
local conditions, it is an undisputed fact that if the Armenians of Van in 
April, 19 1 5, by their heroic resistance had not kept busy that one division 
of regular Turkish troops and thousands of Kurds, and had made it pos- 
sible for them to join the army of Khalil Bey, the Turks undoubtedly 
would have been able to crush the Russian forces in Persia and reach 
Baku in a few weeks, for the simple reason that from the banks of the 
Araxes to Baku the Russians had no forces at all, while the local Tartar 
inhabitants, armed and ready, were awaiting the coming of the Turks 
before rising en masse to join them. From the very beginning of the war, 
Baku has been the real objective of the Turks, just as Paris has been the 
objective of the Germans, and that for two reasons: first, as a fountain 
of wealth, the Turks knew very well that the Russian government received 
from the oil wells of Baku an annual income of more than 200,000,000 
rubles ($100,000,000), a sum which is more than all the revenues of the 
bankrupt Turkish government put together, and they looked upon these 
financial resources as indispensable for the accomplishment of their plan 
of a Pan-Turanian Empire; second, because the very plan of their Pan- 
Turanism had been introduced in Constantinople after 1908 by these very 
Tartars of Baku. The commanders of the Turkish forces engaged in 
Persia and Van — Khalil and Jevded — understood very well why their plans 
failed in the month of April, 191 5; and that failure is the explanation of 
those frightful massacres which took place on the plains of Bitlis and 

7 



Moush in June of the same year, when the armies of the same Khalil 
and Jevded, defeated in Persia and Van, were forced to retreat under the 
pressure of the Armenian volunteers. 

The third Turkish offensive took place early in July, 19 15. This time 
the Turks, with all their available forces — eleven divisions of regular 
troops, again under the command of Khalil Bey — attacked the very center 
of the Caucasian army. In a few days they re-occupied Malashkert, Tou- 
takh, and the greater part of the plains of Alashkert. During one week the 
center of the Russian army retreated more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) 
leaving behind the district of Van entirely unprotected, and in danger of 
being surrounded at any moment. If the Turks had had one or two more 
divisions of troops at their service in those days, they would have been able 
very easily to take prisoners the entire fourth army of the Russian left 
wing and cut off their way of retreat. In order to escape from this dan- 
gerous situation, the Russian left wing was forced to retreat hastily toward 
the Russian frontier and sent a part of its forces to aid the central army. 
Only at the end of July did the Russian army, having received aid from its 
left wing, and under the leadership of Armenian General Nazarbekoff, 
succeed in forcing back the Turks to their former line. These were the 
conditions under which nearly 150,000 Armenian inhabitants of the dis- 
trict of Van were compelled to leave all their property at the mercy of the 
enemy's fire and flee toward Efivan. 



Armenian Resistance to the Turkish Massacres 

It is true that the battalions of Armenian volunteers took no active part 
in the battles of July, for they were then in the district of Van and under- 
taking the heavy duty of rear guard work for the Russian army and the 
Armenian refugees. But the Turkish Armenians behind the front, who 
were being deported and massacred as early as the month of July, by their 
heroic resistance, occupied the attention of four Turkish divisions and tens 
of thousands of Kurds just at the time when the Turks had such great need 
of those forces to aid them in their July drive. It is worth while, therefore, 
to point out here that, during the deportations and massacres of 19 15, when- 
ever the Armenians had any possible means at all of resisting the criminal 
plans of the Turkish government, they took up arms and organized resist- 
ance in different parts of Armenia. 

Even before the deportations had begun, toward the latter part of 19 14, 
the Turkish government cunningly attempted to disarm the Zeitunians, 
the brave Armenian mountaineers of Cilicia, who had taken up arms against 
the Turkish government at three different times in the nineteenth century, 
and each time had laid down their arms only on the intervention of the 
European powers, believing that they would put an end to the Turkish 
barbarities. This time the government filled the prisons with the promi- 

8 



nent Zeitunians and persuaded the young warriors to surrender, promising 
to set them free if they did so. After accomplishing its deceitful plan, the 
government put to death most of the young men, deported the inhabitants, 
and made the mouhajirs from Balkans inhabit Zeitun, even changing the 
name of the place to Soulaymania, in order to erase the memory of those 
brave mountaineers. A group of warriors, however, found means to take 
up their arms, climb the mountains, and fight the Turkish soldiers. They 
are still free, and live among the mountains of Giaur Dagh. In the fol- 
lowing year the inhabitants of Suediah were the first to defend themselves 
against the Turks. In April, when the Turkish government ordered the 
Armenian peasants of Suediah to leave their homes and emigrate toward 
Der-El-Zor, the inhabitants of four or five villages, nearly 5,000 in num- 
ber, refused to obey this unlawful order of the Turkish government. With 
their families they climbed the Amanos mountains and for forty-two days 
heroically resisted the cannonading of the regular Turkish forces. Their 
situation was of course critical. The desperate villagers sewed a large red 
cross on a white sheet to inform the fleet of the Allies in the Mediterranean 
that they were in danger. The French cruiser, Guechene, got in touch with 
the Armenian peasants, informed its war department of the situation, and 
obtained permission to remove them by transports to Port Said (Egypt). 
Most of them are still there, cared for by the British, while the young war- 
riors went to join the French Oriental Legion, and fought on the Palestine 
front under General Allenby. 

The resistance at Van has already been spoken of. The next place of 
importance must be given to the brave mountaineers district of Sasoun, 
that very Sasoun which had retained its semi-independent position in Turk- 
ish Armenia up to the beginning of the last century, and had taken up arms 
at three different times in the present generation to defend its independ- 
ence against the Ottoman troops — in 1894, in 1904, and again in 19 1 5. 
This last time, toward the end of June, when the troops of Khalil and 
Jevded began to lay waste with fire and sword the city of Moush and the 
unprotected villages of the outlying district, the gallant Sasounians, under 
the guidance of their two idealistic leaders, came down from their mountains 
and made several raids on the city to drive away the Turks. One of their- 
leaders was Roupen, a self-sacrificing and highly educated young man who 
had received his university training in Geneva, Switzerland, and had 
shouldered his gun in 1904 and had dedicated himself to the task of de- 
fending Sasoun. The name of the other was Vahan Papazian (a native of 
Van, but educated in Russian universities), who had been elected represen- 
tative from Van to the Ottoman parliament. This daring step on the part 
of Sasoun forced the Turkish commanders to march on Sasoun with two 
divisions of troops and with nearly 30,000 Kurds. From the first days of 
July to Sept. 8, the Sasounians were able to resist the Turco-Kurdish at- 
tacks, always with the hope that the Russian army would come to their 
assistance. During that interval of time, the Sasounians sent several cour- 

9 



iers to the Russian army and asked for help, but the Russian commanders 
remained indifferent, in spite of the fact that the extreme front line of the 
Russian army was scarcely 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from Sasoun, 
and the sound of the Turkish artillery aimed at the Sasounians could be 
heard very distinctly by the Russian army. One of the commanders of 
the Armenian volunteers, Dro, appealed to the Russian commander and 
asked for one battery of cannon and a score or two of machine guns, which 
would have enabled his men to break the Turkish front and join the 
Sasounians. That request likewise was refused by the heartless command- 
ers of despotic Russia. These were the conditions under which fell the 
historic Verdun of Armenia, heroic little Sasoun which, with its 10,000 
mountaineers, succeeded in facing 50,000 Turks and Kurds for two months, 
with antiquated weapons and without adequate food or ammunition. 

Making all due allowance for the relative magnitude and importance 
of the Near Eastern and the Western fronts, we may safely say without 
exaggeration that Van and Sasoun, on the Caucasian front in the year 19 15, 
played exactly the same role which Liege played in 19 14 and Verdun in 
19 1 6 on the Western front. Had it not been for these two points of stub- 
born resistance against the Turkish troops in the summer of 19 15, the two 
Turkish offensives, already spoken of, would have had great chances of suc- 
cess-. This is an undisputed fact with all the inhabitants of the Near East. 
And indeed, three months after these events, when the Armenian volun- 
teers together with the Russian troops recommenced their drive and cap- 
tured the cities of Moush and Bitlis, in the diary of a Turkish officer, who 
was taken prisoner in Bitlis, was found the following item, which appeared 
at the time in the Russian press: 

"We are asked why we massacre the Armenians. The reason is quite 
plain to me. Had not the Armenians fought against us, we should have 
reached Tiflis and Baku long ago." 

In addition to Van and Sasoun, during the same July when deportations 
and organized massacres were going on, three other places might be men- 
tioned where hopeless attempts at resistance were made by the Armenians 
against the savage Turks and Kurds. These places were Sivas, Urfa, and 
■Shabin-Karahissar. At Sivas the heroic resistance of Mourat and his com- 
rades and their escape were so full of thrilling events that they have been 
likened to the adventures of Odysseus. Mourat is a brave warrior who, to- 
gether with his companion, Sepouh, had fought at Sasoun, in 1904, and 
had taken part in the Armenian and Tartar clashes of 1905 and 1906 in 
the Caucasus. When deportations and massacres commenced in 19 15, 
Turkish gendarmes were sent to capture Mourat, who was living with 
his wife and child in a village near Sivas. Realizing the coming danger, 
Mourat climbed the mountains with his band of warriors and resisted the 
raids of the enemy. After a year and a half of stubborn resistance, he 
descended one day to the shore of the Black Sea, captured a Turkish sail- 
boat near Samsoun, and putting his comrades into it, ordered the Turkish 

10 



sailor to steer the boat toward Batoum, a Russian port. According to cable 
messages, Mourat was chased by a Turkish gun-boat. Several battles took 
place in which he lost a few of his men, but finally repulsed the Turks and 
reached Batoum safe and sound. At Urfa the Armenians were able for 
forty days to repulse the attacks of one Turkish division, but finally fell 
heroically under the fire of Turkish artillery, commanded by German offi- 
cers, having previously destroyed all their property so that it would not fall 
into the hands of their enemies. In the ruined Armenian trenches of Urfa, 
by the side of Armenian young men there had fallen dead also Armenian 
young women who, arms in hand, were found all mangled by the German 
bombs. At Shabin-Karahissar, nearly 5,000 Armenians, for twenty-seven 
days without interruption, in the same month of July, kept busy another 
division of Turkish troops with their artillery. There took place one of 
the most tragic and heroic episodes of the present war. When the ammu- 
nition of the Armenians was almost gone, on the last day of the struggle, 
nearly 3,000 Armenian women and girls drank poison and died in order 
not to fall alive into the hands of the savage Turks. If the supply of poison 
had not given out, all the women would have done likewise. An eye-wit- 
ness, one who had taken part in the struggle and who succeeded in reaching 
the Caucasus in 19 16, after wandering in the mountains and valleys of 
Armenia for a whole year, related how on that last day Armenian 
mothers and girls, with tears in their eyes and with hymns on their lips, 
received poison from the Armenian physicians and apothecaries for them- 
selves and their little ones. When the supply of poison gave out, those who 
were unable to obtain any uttered terrible wailing, and many of the girls 
cast themselves down from the rocks of the Karahissar citadel and com- 
mitted suicide. 

These events reveal the following facts: first, that in spite of all the 
precautions which the Turkish government employed to disarm the Ar- 
menians before carrying out its fiendish design, the Armenians found means 
to organize in the four corners of Armenia hopeless but serious plans of re- 
sistance against the swords of their enemy; second, that in order to elimi- 
nate these Armenian points of resistance during the summer of 1915, five 
Turkish divisions and tens of thousands of Kurds were kept employed, and 
were unable to add their immediate co-operation in those very days to the 
other Turkish forces engaged in their two offensives on the Caucasian front. 
These were the positive services which the martyred Armenian people ren- 
dered to the allied cause in the Near East. Their active resistance to the 
Turco-German plans, however, cost the Armenians more than one million 
men, women and children massacred under the most savage conditions and 
the deprivation of their means of livelihood in Turkish Armenia. But, to 
complete the description of the Armenian Calvary, it is necessary to picture 
also in a few words the attitude assumed by the government of the Russian 
Czar toward the very Armenian people whose active participation on 
Russia's side enabled the Caucasian front to repulse the Turkish attacks in 

11 



19 14 and 19 15, and, moreover, to accomplish definite successes during the 
following year, 19 16. 

Attitude of Russian Czarism Toward the Armenians 

As we have already mentioned, from the beginning of the war the Rus- 
sian bureaucracy tried on one hand by various false promises to win over 
the sympathy of the Armenians, while on the other it tried by every means 
to keep the Armenian military forces away from the Caucasian front. Only 
seven battalions of Armenian volunteers were kept on the Caucasian front. 
As we have already seen, those few battalions even, in 1914 and 19 1 5, 
rendered to the Russians invaluable services, twice saving the right and left 
wings of the Russian army from an unavoidable catastrophe by their 
heroic resistance; but the Russian official communiques do not contain one 
line in which the battalions of Armenian volunteers are even mentioned. 
The same silence was maintained by the Russian communiques concerning 
the heroic resistance of the Armenians at Van, and with regard to the 
assistance which the Armenian volunteers rushed to that city. This was 
the policy of the government of Russian Czarism from the beginning of 
the war to the end of its existence, — to avoid in every way speaking about 
the Armenians and Armenia. The Russian press was even forbidden to 
speak about the massacres carried on in Turkish Armenia at the hands of 
the Turkish government. Therefore, when the capture of Erzeroum in 
19 1 6 made the immediate co-operation of the Armenian volunteers unneces- 
sary to the Russians, the commander-in-chief of the Caucasian army at 
the time, Grand Duke Nicolas Nicolaevitch, ordered the disbanding of 
all the battalions of the Armenian volunteers. Besides this amazing treat- 
ment of the Armenian military forces, the Czar's government removed 
from the Caucasus before the war all the Armenian officers and replaced 
them by generals (avowedly anti-Armenian in spirit) from the Russian, 
Georgian and other Caucasian races. The object of this move was to 
enable the government to check the national aspirations of the Armenians, 
and to give it a plausible opportunity at the end of the war to take over the 
Armenian vilayets without gratifying the demands of the Armenians for 
autonomy. 

From the third month of the war, it became clear to us that the Russian 
government pursued unswervingly its Lobanoff-policy toward the Armen- 
ians. What was that policy? In 1896, when an English correspondent 
interviewed the Russian minister of foreign affairs, Count Lobanoff Ros- 
towsky, and asked him why Russia did not occupy the Armenian vilayets 
of Turkey in order to save that Christian people from the Turkish massa- 
cres, the Russian minister cynically replied: "We need Armenia, but 
without the Armenians." It is worth while, then, to give here a few actual 
facts which reveal this fiendish policy pursued by the Russian government 
toward a people which was the only one of all the peoples of the Caucasus 

12 



and the Near East to help the Russian army by its unreserved co-operation 
and which was the only factor that saved the Caucasian front from an 
unavoidable catastrophe in 1914 and 19 1 5. 

One. Every time that the Russian army was forced to retreat from the 
recaptured parts of Turkish Armenia, no precautionary measures were 
taken in order to save the local Armenian inhabitants from the inevitable 
massacres. For example, in December, 19 14, when the Turks advanced as 
far as Sarikamish and Ardahan and forced the central Russian army to 
retreat from the neighborhood of Alashkert and Bayazid, the commander 
of the local forces, General Abatzieff (an Acetine Moslem who had joined 
the Greek church) strictly ordered the local Armenian inhabitants, nearly 
32,000 in number, not to stir from their places, and in order to have his 
command accurately carried out he placed mounted Cossack patrols in 
the plains of Alashkert lest the Armenian peasants should emigrate toward 
the Russian frontier, in which direction the Russian army with its trans- 
ports had already been moving since December 13. Three days later the 
second battalion of the Armenian volunteers, which had been fighting in 
the first-line positions for over two months under the command of the 
same general, returned to the army headquarters for a well-earned rest, 
and there only it heard about the serious happenings already mentioned, 
and the extraordinary attitude assumed by the Russian general. The Ar- 
menian peasants from every side appealed to the Armenian volunteers 
with tears in their eyes and begged to be saved from an inevitable mas- 
sacre. The commander of the Armenian volunteers, Armen Garo, and 
his brave assistant, Khetcho, who died like a hero in July, 19 15, on the 
shores of Lake Van, went immediately to General Abatzieff and asked him 
to revoke his order and permit the Armenian inhabitants to move with the 
army toward Igdir. The hostile general refused their request, his answer 
being that, if the people stirred from the place, he would be unable to re- 
move the army transports soon enough. When he heard this answer, 
Armen Garo immediately telegraphed to Ighir and appealed to the 
commander-in-chief of the fourth army, General Oganowsky, and asked for 
his intervention. On the following day only, thanks to the interven- 
tion of General Oganowsky, the Armenian volunteers received permis- 
sion to organize the retreat of the Armenian inhabitants of the plains 
of Alashkert toward Igdir and to defend them from the attacks of 
the Kurds. During the seven days that the retreat lasted the Armenians 
lost only 400 persons, and most of those on account of the severe cold. 
Another example of this hostile treatment of the Armenians by the Russian 
authorities might be mentioned, — the retreat from the Van district in July, 
19 1 5. There General Nikolaeff for eight continuous days deceived the 
Armenian leaders and made them remain idle (telling them every day that 
he would not retreat under any circumstances, and that therefore it was 
entirely needless to remove the people), until behold, one day, July 18, 
he suddenly sent for the mayor of Van, Aram, and the commander-in-chief 

13 



of the Armenian volunteers, Vartan, and informed them that he had re- 
ceived orders to retreat immediately, but in order to make it possible for 
the people to prepare for departure, he would wait until the 20th of the 
month. Thus the Armenian leaders were forced to remove in two or 
three days nearly 150,000 people of the Van region, and if those three 
battalions of Armenian volunteers had not been there to protect the people 
from Kurdish and Turkish raids, the loss of life during the journey would 
have been tenfold more than it actually was. Whereas, if the Russian gen- 
eral had not been so deceitful in his behavior but had given an opportunity 
of seven or eight days to organize the retreat, it would have been possible 
to direct the people to Erivan without loss of life. The Armenians suffered 
a loss of 8,000 to 10,000 men, women and children during the retreat. 

Two. When Turkish Armenia was almost wholly emptied of its Ar- 
menian inhabitants, due to these successive retreats, the Russian govern- 
ment raised all sorts of barriers before the refugees to prevent them from 
returning to their former homes when the Russian army recaptured the 
Armenian vilayets. For example, in 1916-1917, scarcely 8,000 to 10,000 
Armenians were permitted to go back and inhabit the region of Van; the 
rest were compelled to stay within the borders of the Caucasus as refugees. 
Toward the latter part of 19 16, even among the Russian governmental 
circles there was talk of transferring to Siberia nearly 250,000 Turkish 
Armenian refugees who had sought refuge in the Caucasus, because it was 
objected that no available lands existed there for them. Russians con- 
sidered it a settled question that even after the war the Turkish Armenians 
would not be permitted to return to their homes. 

On the other hand, the same Russian bureaucracy resorted every means 
to win the sympathy of the Turkish and Kurdish inhabitants remaining 
in Armenia. With that purpose in view, in the spring of 19 16, on behalf 
of the ministry for foreign affairs at Petrograd, Count Chakhowsky with 
his own organization established himself in Bashkale (a city in the district 
of Van) and distributed nearly 24,000 rifles to the Kurds of the neighbor- 
ing regions. It is needless to say that not long after those very rifles were 
used by the Kurds against the Russian army both in Persia and Armenia. 
This amazing action of Count Chakhowsky was taken so openly that it 
was even known to ordinary Russian soldiers, who were extremely enraged 
against the Count, a fact which accounts for the murder of the same Count 
Chakhowsky in Persia by Russian soldiers, when the discipline of the Rus- 
sian army was relaxed on account of the revolution which took place in the 
spring of 19 17. 

Three. While the Russians were preventing the Turkish Armenian 
refugees from returning to their own lands, they, in the spring of 19 16, 
commenced to organize in Turkish Armenia colonies of Cossacks. The 
Russian administration sent special propagandists to the northern Caucasus 
to persuade the Cossacks living there to move to Armenia, and during that 
same year 5,000 of them, under the name of agricultural battalions, were 

14 



already cultivating the plains of Alashkert, lands which rightly belonged to 
the Armenians. This last act of the Russian government was so revolting 
that even the liberal organs of the Russian press complained of the govern- 
ment for such inhuman proceedings, while in the Russian Duma two Rus- 
sian representatives, N. Milukoff and A. Kerensky (both of whom played 
such great roles the following year in the downfall of Czarism), publicly 
criticised the government of the Czar for its base treatment of the Armen- 
ians. Documentary evidence relating to this disgraceful action of the Rus- 
sian government, which incensed the ire of prominent liberals in the Duma, 
may be found in the July 28, 1916, issue of the Retch, the organ of the 
Constitutional Democrats in Russia. In order to characterize this criminal 
action of the Russian bureaucracy against the Armenian people who were 
martyred for the allied cause, it may be worth while also to cite the follow- 
ing details : 

In the month of July, 19 15, the Armenian inhabitants of Erzeroum, 
nearly 25,000 in number, were likewise deported by the Turkish govern- 
ment, leaving all their real and personal property at the disposal of the 
Turks. The governor of the place, Tahsin Bey, arranged a scheme by 
means of which every Armenian before leaving the city could store his 
goods and household furniture (with the name of the owner on each 
article) in the cathedral, with the apparent purpose of returning them to 
their owners after the war, but with the real purpose of preventing so much 
riches from falling into the hands of the Turkish mob, in order to appro- 
priate them later for the government. The cathedral of Erzeroum was 
packed with the goods of the exiled Armenians when the Russians captured 
the city in February, 19 16. Ordinary human decency demanded that the 
Russians should not have touched the articles stored in that sacred edifice, 
especially as they belonged to the very martyred people whose professed 
sympathies for them (the Russians) were the cause of their being exiled 
to the deserts of Mesopotamia. But the fact is that the commander of the 
Russian army, General Kaledine himself, set the example of desecration; 
he personally entered the cathedral first and selected for himself a few 
car-loads of rugs and sundry valuable articles. Then the other officers of 
the Russian army followed his example, and in a few days half of the 
contents of the church was already pillaged before the representative of 
the Armenian Committee, Mr. Rostom, aftr repeated telegrams, was able 
to receive an order from Tiflis to stop the plunder. In that same summer 
of 19 1 6, the Buxton brothers (representatives of the Armenian Committee 
of London) and other English Armenophiles came to Armenia. When 
they witnessed all these disgraceful particulars they could not believe their 
own eyes, so monstrous was the attitude of the Russian government toward 
the Armenians. The English and American friends of Armenia consoled 
them by saying that on their return they would have the privilege of ex- 
plaining this state of affairs to their government and they would doubtless 
do all in their power to protect the rights of the Armenians. These were 

15 



the circumstances under which the Armenian people joined its fate to the 
allied cause from the very beginning of the war, and, having made colossal 
sacrifices during three whole years, was almost crushed to death in the 
claws of Turkish and Russian despotism. 

In that same sorrowful summer of 191 6 the Armenians heard the news 
that England, France, and Russia had signed an agreement concerning 
Armenia. According to that agreement Russia was to take over the three" 
vilayets of Turkish Armenia, Erzeroum, Bitlis, and Van, while southern 
Armenia and Cilicia were to be put under the guardianship of France. One 
must be an Armenian in order to feel the depth and intensity of the bitter- 
ness and disappointment which filled the hearts of all the wandering Armen- 
ians from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia. Every Armenian asked himself 
or herself: Was this to be our recompense? 

In those very days (September, 19 16) one of the agents of the German 
government in Switzerland approached Dr. Zavrieff (one of the repre- 
sentatives of the Armenian Committee of that place) with the following 
proposal: 

"You Armenians made a great mistake when you joined your fate to that of the 
Allies. It is time for you to rectify your mistaken policy. Your dreams with 
regard to the historic Armenia are unrealizable. You may as well accustom your- 
selves to that fact, and before it is too late you will do better to join the fate of 
your people with the German policies, and remove the remnants of the Armenian 
people to Mesopotamia, where the Germans will put at the disposal of the 
Armenians every means which will enable them to create for themselves a new 
and a more fortunate fatherland under their (German) immediate protection." 

In order to persuade his Armenian opponent, the German agent con- 
stantly reminded him of the agreement (between England, France and 
Russia), and especially of the hostile attitude of the Russians up to that 
time towards the Armenians. The news of this German proposal reached 
the Caucasus in December of the same year. It was made the subject of 
serious consultation among the Armenian leaders. The writer of these 
lines was present at those conferences, and his impression was this: Had 
there not been that superhuman adoration (so peculiarly Armenian) which 
every Armenian has for his ancestral home and recollections so sanctified 
by blood, the German proposal would very likely have been accepted by 
the Armenians at that psychological moment when their hearts were over- 
flowing with bitterness and disappointment toward the Russian govern- 
ment, — a member of the allied nations. The outcome of those conferences 
was that we decided to continue our former policy toward the Entente, 
in spite of the base behavior of the Russians towards us, and at the same 
time to invite the serious attention of our great Allies of the west to our 
hopeless situation. 



16 



Role Played by the Armenians in the Caucasus After the Russian 

Collapse 

This was the state of affairs when there came the crash of the Russian 
revolution. The heart of every Armenian was greatly relieved, thinking 
that the greater part of their torments would come to an end. And in 
truth, during the first few months of the revolution, the temporary govern- 
ment of Kerensky made definite arrangements to rectify the unjust treat- 
ment of the Armenians by the government of the Czar. But events pro- 
gressed in a precipitate manner. The demoralization of the Russian troops 
on all the fronts assumed greater proportions as the days went by. Fore- 
seeing the danger which threatened the Caucasus, the Armenian National 
Organization of the Caucasus, as early as April, 19 17, sent to Petrograd 
on a special commission Dr. Zavrieff, already mentioned, and the writer 
of these lines, in order to have them obtain permission to transfer to the 
Caucasus some 150,000 Armenian officers and men (scattered throughout 
the Russian army), by whose assistance the Armenians might be able to 
protect their own native land against the Turkish advance. Mr. Kerensky, 
who was well acquainted with the abnormal conditions reigning in the 
Caucasus, agreed to grant the request of the Armenian delegates, but, on 
the other hand, for fear of receiving similar requests from the other races 
in case he granted an order favorable to the Armenians, he decided to ful- 
fill our request unofficially, that is, without a special order, to send the 
Armenian soldiers to the Caucasus gradually, in small groups, in order not 
to attract the attention of other races. And he carried out this plan. 

But unfortunately, scarcely 35,000 Armenian soldiers had been able to 
reach the Caucasus by November, 19 17, when Kerensky himself fell at the 
hands of the Bolsheviks, and there was created a chaotic condition the re- 
sult of which was the final demobilization of the Russian army. During 
December, 191 7, and January, 1-918, the Russian army of 250,000 men on 
the Caucasian front, without any orders, abandoned its positions and moved 
into the interior of Russia, leaving entirely unprotected a front about 970 
kilometers (600 miles) in length, extending from the Black Sea to Persia. 
As soon as the Russian army disbanded, the 3,000,000 Tartar inhabitants 
of the Caucasus armed themselves and rose en masse. Toward the end of 
January last, the Tartars had cut the Baku-Tiflis railroad line as well as 
the Erivan-Joulfa line, and now began to raid and plunder the Armenian 
cities and villages, while behind, on the frontier, the regular Turkish army 
had commenced to advance in the first days of February. Against all these 
Turks and Tartars the Armenians had one army corps made up of some 
35,000 regular troops under the command of General Nazarbekoff, and 
nearly 20,000 Armenian volunteers under the command of their exper- 
ienced leaders. Armenia's only hope of assistance was their neighbors, the 
Georgians, who were as much interested in the protection of the Caucasus 
as the Armenians were, because the Turkish demands of the Brest-Litovsk 

17 



treaty Included definite portions of Georgia, as well as of Armenia; for 
example, the port of Batoum. And in fact, during the months of January 
and February they seemed quite inclined to help the Armenians, but when 
the Turks captured Batoum on April 15 and came as far as Usurgeti, the 
morale of the Georgians was completely broken, and they immediately 
sent a delegation to Berlin and put Georgia under German protection. 
From this time on the 2,000,000 Armenian inhabitants of the Caucasus re- 
mained entirely alone to face, on the one hand, the Turkish regular army 
of 100,000 men, and on the other hand, the armed forces of hundreds of 
thousands of Tartars. From the end of February the small number of 
Armenian forces commenced to retreat step by step before the superior 
Turkish forces, from Erzingan, Baiburt, Khenous, Mamakhatoun, Erze- 
roum, and Bayazid, and concentrated their forces on the former Russian- 
Turkish frontier. Here commenced serious battles which arrested for 
quite a long time the advance of the Turkish troops. It took them until 
April 22 to arrive before the forts of Kars, where the first serious resist- 
ance of the Armenians took place. The fierce Turkish attack which con- 
tinued for four days was easily repulsed by the Armenians, owing to the 
guns on the ramparts of Kars. 

During these events a temporary government of the Caucasus existed 
in Tiflis, composed of representatives of three Caucasian races — Georgian, 
Armenian, and Tartar. This Caucasian government was formed imme- 
diately after the coup d'etat of the Bolsheviks, and conducted Caucasian 
affairs as an independent body. It refused to recognize the authority of 
the Bolshevik government, or the terms of the Brest-Litovsk treaty signed 
by its accredited delegates. The president of the government was Chek- 
henkeli, a Georgian. Immediately after the capture of Batoum the Cau- 
casian government opened peace negotiations with Turkish delegates in 
Batoum itself. The Turks, by their usual crafty tricks, persuaded the 
Georgian delegates that they would return Batoum to the Georgians if 
Kars surrendered without resistance. Feeling assured of this Turkish 
promise, the Georgian president of the Caucasian government, Chekhen- 
keli, on the night of April 25, without consultation with the other mem- 
bers of the government, telegraphed the commander of Kars that an armis- 
tice had been signed with the Turks on condition of surrendering Kars, 
and therefore to give up the forts immediately and retreat as far as Arpa- 
Chai. On the following day the commander of the Armenian soldiers 
who were defending Kars delivered the forts into the hands of the Turks 
and retreated to Alexandropol. Then it became known that Chekhenkeli 
had sent the fateful telegram on his own responsibility, but it was already 
too late. This event occasioned very strained relations between the Ar- 
menians and Georgians. Not long after, on the 26th of May, the Geor- 
gians, assured of German protection, declared in Tiflis the independence 
of Georgia. Thus the temporary Caucasian government dissolved. 

After the separation of the Georgians the Armenian National Council 

18 



of the Caucasus declared Armenian independence, under the name of the 
Republic of Ararat, with Eriva'n as its capital. While the negotiations were 
going on in Batoum — always between the delegates of the Turks and the 
three Caucasian races comprising the Caucasian temporary government, — 
the Turkish armies, after the occupation of Kars, became more aggressive 
and commenced to advance toward Alexandropol and Karakilissa. Con- 
centrating their forces around Karakilissa and Erivan, early in June, the 
Armenians in two fierce battles drove the Turks back almost to their fron- 
'tier. In the battle of Karakilissa, which lasted four days, the Turks left 
6,000 dead before the Armenian posts, and escaped to Alexandropol. 
When the Turks felt that their position in the face of the Armenian re- 
sistance was becoming more and more hopeless and that it would cost them 
dear to continue the fight, they immediately began to make concessions. Up 
to that time the Turks had not yet recognized the right of Russian Ar- 
menia to independence, their objection being that they only recognized in 
the Caucasus Georgian and Tartar countries. But when they heard the 
news of the last military victory of the Armenians, on June 14, in Batoum, 
the Turkish delegates, together with the representatives of the Republic 
of Ararat, signed the first terms of armistice, leaving the final peace signa- 
ture to the congress of Constantinople, where the final negotiations were 
to take place. 

The delegates of the three nations of the Caucasus reached Constanti- 
nople on June 19. They were 32 in number. Among them were also the 
representatives of the Republic of Ararat, Mr. A. Khatissoff, the minister 
of foreign affairs, and Mr. A. Aharonian, the president of the Armenian 
National Council. In that congress, which convened in presence of the 
delegates of the German and Austrian government, the Turks signed peace 
treaties with each of the newly-formed Caucasian Republics. It is needless 
to say that those treaties had as much value as that which the Roumanian 
government was forced to sign a few months before by the central powers. 
And, as was expected, the Turks and the Germans rewarded the Georgians 
and the Tartars at the expense of the Armenians. They gave the greater 
part of the Armenian territories to the other two nations, and the remainder 
was claimed by Turkey, with the exception of 32,000 square kilometers 
(about 12,350 square miles), with 700,000 Armenian inhabitants, which 
were left to the Republic of Ararat. According to these terms only one- 
third of the Armenians of the Caucasus are included within the Republic 
of Ararat, while the remaining 1,400,000 Armenians are left in territories 
allotted to the Tartars or the Georgians. 

That portion of the Armenians which inhabits the mountainous regions 
of Karabagh (which was assigned to the Tartars), up to this very day, 
October, 19 18, resists the Turco-Tartar hordes and refuses at any price to 
be subjected to the unjust terms of the treaty of Constantinople, while be- 
yond, the Armenians at Van, when their miliary forces realized that their 
retreat was cut off early last May, after being sheltered for two whole 

19 



months in Van, moved toward Persia, there joined the Christian Assyrians 
in the neighborhood of Urmia, repulsed for a long time the Turkish and 
Kurdish attacks, and only early in September succeeded in shattering the 
Turkish lines and thereby reached the city of Hamadan in Persia, where 
they entrusted to the care of the British fores the protection of about 
40,000 Armenian and Assyrian refugees. In order to complete this picture 
of the heroic resistance of the Caucasian Armenians, let me say a few words 
more about the struggle at Baku. 

Armenians Capture Baku 

As already mentioned, early in May, 19 17, through the efforts of the 
Armenian National Organization of the Caucasus, the Armenian soldiers 
and officers scattered throughout Russia were gradually brought together 
and mobilized on the Caucasion front. With that purpose in view an Ar- 
menian Military Committee was formed in Petrograd with General Bag- 
radouni as president. Bagradouni was one of the most brilliant young gen- 
erals of the Russian army. He had received his military training at the 
highest military academy of Petrograd, and during Kerensky's adminis- 
tration, was appointed Chief of the Staff of the military forces at Petro- 
grad. When the Bolsheviks assumed power they ordered him to take an 
oath of loyalty to the new government. General Bagradouni refused to 
do so, and for that reason he was imprisoned, with many other high mili- 
tary officials. After remaining in prison two months, through repeated 
appeals by the Armenian National bodies, he was freed by the Bolsheviks 
on condition that he should immediately leave Petrograd. After his release 
from prison, General Bagradouni, accompanied by the well known Armen- 
ian social worker, Mr. Rostom, with 200 Armenian officers, left for the 
Caucasus to assume the duties of commander-in-chief of the newly-formed 
Armenian army. This group of Armenian officers reached Baku early in 
March, where it was forced to wait, for the simple reason that the Baku- 
Tiflis railroad line was already cut by the Tartars. During that same 
"month of March from many parts of Russia a large number of Armenians 
gathered at Baku and waited to go to Erivan and Tiflis in response to the 
call issued by the Armenian National Council. Toward the end of March 
nearly 10,000 Armenian soldiers had come together at Baku. 

By the 30th of March the news of German victories was spread through- 
out the Caucasus by the Turco-German agents. On the same day in Baku 
and other places appeared the following leaflets: 
"Awake, Turkish brothers! 

"Protect your rights; union with the Turks means life. 
"Unite, O Children of the Turks! 

"Brothers of the noble Turkish nation, for hundreds of years our blood 
has flowed like water, our motherland has been ruined, and we have been 
under the heel of thousands of oppressors who have almost crushed us. We 
have forgotten our nation. We do not know to whom to appeal for help. 

20 



Countrymen, we consider ourselves free hereafter. Let us look into 
our conscience! Let us not listen to the voice of plotters. We must not 
lose the way to freedom; our freedom lies in union with the Turks. It is 
necessary for us to unite and put ourselves under the protction of the 
Turkish flag. 

"Forward, brothers ! Let us gather ourselves under the flag of union 
and stretch out our hands to our Turkish brothers. Long life to the gen- 
erous Turkish nation! By these words we shall never again bear a foreign 
yoke, the chains of servitude." 

And on the following day (March 31) from all sides of the Caucasus the 
armed hordes of Tartars attacked the Armenians. The leaders of the 
Tartars at Baku were convinced that they would easily disarm the Armenian 
soldiers, because they were somewhat shut up in Baku, but they were sadly 
mistaken in their calculations. After a bloody battle which lasted a whole 
week the Armenians remained masters of the city and its oil wells. They 
suffered a loss of nearly 2,500 killed, while the Tartars lost more than 
10,000. The commander of the military forces of the Armenians was 
the same General Bagradouni, who, although he lost both of his legs during 
the fight, continued his duties until September 14, when the Armenians and 
the small number of Englishmen who came to their assistance were forced 
to abandon Baku to the superior forces of the Turco-Tartars, and retreat 
toward the city of Enzeli in the northern Caucasus. 

During these heroic struggles, which lasted five and a half months, the 
small Armenian garrison of Baku, together with a few thousand Russians, 
defended Baku and its oil wells against tens of thousands of Tartars, the 
Caucasian mountaineers, and more than one division of regular Turkish 
troops which had come to the assistance of the latter by way of Batoum. 
Time after time the Turkish troops made fierce attacks to capture the city, 
but each time they were repulsed with heavy losses by the gallant Armenian 
garrison. The Armenians had built their hopes on British assistance, 
since nothing was expected from the demoralized Russian army. But, 
unfortunately, the British were unable to reach Baku with large forces from 
their Bagdad army. Nevertheless, on August 5, they landed at Baku 2,800 
men to help the Armenians. The arrival of this small British contingent 
caused great enthusiasm among the tired and exhausted defenders of the 
city. But meanwhile the Turks had received new forces from Batoum and 
renewed their attacks. After a series of bloody battles the armed Ar- 
menian and British forces were forced to leave Baku on September 14 and 
retreat toward Persia, taking with them nearly 10,000 refugees from the 
inhabitants of the city. As to the condition of those who were left behind, 
this much is certain: that on the day the city was occupied by the Turco- 
Tartars, nearly 20,000 Armenians were put to the sword, the greater por- 
tion of them being women and children. According to the news received 
from Persia, after that first terrible massacre, other massacres likewise have 
taken place. The number of the losses is not known; but it may safely be 
surmised without any exaggeration that out of the entire 80,000 Armenian 

21 



inhabitants of Baku, all those who were unable to leave the city in time 
were slaughtered by the revengeful Turks and Tartars. Thus ended the 
resistance of five months and a half by the Armenians at Baku against 
the Turco-Germans. 

The remnants of the retreating Armenian garrison of Baku, at the time 
of writing, are located in the Persian city of Enzeli, where, under the 
command of their heroic leader, General Bagradouni, they are recuperating 
before hastening to the aid of the Armenians in the eastern Caucasus, who, 
as already mentioned, up to this very day are resisting the forces of the 
Turco-Tartars in the mountains of Karabagh. 

Armenia's Co-operation with the Allies on Other Fronts 

The Armenians, besides battling on the Caucasian front, where they have 
been fighting in their own native land, have co-operated unreservedly with 
the Allies on far distant fronts, as for example on the French front. 
At the beginning of the war Armenian students living in France — about 
900 in number — volunteered to serve in the French army for the 
defence of civilization and freedom. To-day, scarcely 50 of them are 
alive; the majority of the 850 others gave their lives in 1916 in the im- 
mortal defence of Verdun. This small episode in this universal drama will 
not be forgotten by either France or the Free Armenia of the future. 
Glory to the memory of those immortal heroes ! Beyond, on another front 
of the war, by an extraordinary coincidence of fate, in the deadly blow 
which fell on the head of the Criminal Ottoman Empire in the Holy Land, 
the sons of the sorrowful people whom it had ruthlessly slaughtered had 
their just share of active participation. And indeed, in General Allenby's 
victorious army, which saved Palestine and Syria from Turkish tyranny 
in September, 19 18, by General Allenby's own testimony, the eight bat- 
talions of the Armenian volunteers (who took part in those battles under 
the French flag) were conspicuous for their bravery. In response to a 
congratulatory telegram from the chairman of the Armenian National 
Union of Egypt for the victories on the Palestine front, General Allenby 
said: "I thank you warmly for your congratulations, and am proud of the 
fact that your Armenian compatriotis in the Oriental Legion took an 
active prat in the fighting and shared in our victory.'' 

Conclusion 

If we wish to condense all we have said in a few pages, we shall have the 
following picture : 

In 19 14 both Turkey and Russia appealed to the Armenians by vari- 
ous promises of a future autonomous Armenia to secure their assistance 
in their respective military operations. Through their long and bitter 
experience the Armenians knew very well that the imperialistic govern- 
ments of both Turkey and of Russia were opposed to their national aspira- 

22 



tions and therefore those promises had no value whatever. But, realizing 
the universal significance of the present war, and considering the fact that 
justice was on the side of the Entente,. the Armenians, in spite of their 
distrust of the Russian government, from the very beginning, unreservedly 
bound hemselves to the allied cause. 

This decision of the Armenians cost them the sacrifice of more than 
1,000,000 men in Turkish Armenia, and complete devastation of their 
native land even in the first year of the war. 

In spite of this terrible blow, the Armenians did not lose their vigor, 
and, even though the autocratic Russian government, up to the time of 
the Revolution, created all sorts of obstacles to impede their activities, 
they still continued their assistance to the allied cause. In bringing about 
the failure of the three Turkish offensives in 19 14 and 19 15 the Armenians 
gave the allied cause important armed assistance, on both sides of the 
Turco-Russian frontier. 

After the Russian Revolution, when the Russian military forces fled 
from the Caucasian front and left it unprotected from January, 19 18, to 
the middle of the following September, the Armenians were the only 
people who resisted and delayed the Turco-German advance toward Baku. 
Moreover, the Armenians accomplished all this with their own forces, all 
alone, surrounded on all sides by hostile elements, without any means of 
communication with their great Allies of the West. As an evidence of 
this we may mention the fact that during the last eight months and a half 
the Armenians have received from the Allies only 6,500,000 rubles ($3,- 
250,000) of financial assistance, and the 2,800 British soldiers who were 
too few and arrived too late to save Baku. 

Let us now look at the other side of the picture. 

Had the Armenians assumed an entirely opposite attitude from what 
they actually did; in other words, had they bound their fate in 19 14 to 
the Turco-German cause, just as the Bulgarians did in 1915, what would 
have been the trend of events in the Near East? Here is a question to 
which, it is quite possible, our great Allies have had no time to give any 
consideration. But that very question was put before the Armenians in 
1914, and with no light heart did they answer it by their decision to join 
the Allies. Each and every one of them had a clear presentiment of the 
terrible responsibility they assumed. Those millions of corpses of Arme- 
nian women and children which spotted the plains in the summer of 19 15, 
rose like phantoms before our very eyes in the August of 19 14 when we. 
decided to resist the wild Turkish revengefulness and its frightful outcome. 
Now, in October, 19 18, when we are so close to the hour of the final vic- 
tory, and feel quite safe and certain that the heavy and gloomy days of 
the summer of 19 14 will never return, I shall permit myself to picture in 
a few words, before I finish, that which would have taken place if the 
Armenians had sided with the Germano-Turks in the Near East from the 
beginning of the war. 

23 



First of all, those frightful Armenian massacres would not have taken 
place. On the contrary, the Turks and the Germans would have tried to 
win the sympathy of the Armenians in every possible way until the end of 
the war. 

On the other hand, so long as the Georgians and Tartars of the Cau- 
casian peoples were only too eager to co-operate with the Germano-Turks, 
as the events of 191 8 fully demonstrate, had the Armenians likewise joined 
them in 19 14, by cutting the railroads, the backbone of the Caucasian 
Russian army, all the Caucasian country would have slipped out of the 
hands of the Russians in a few weeks, and the Turco-Germans would have 
reached Baku in the autumn of the same year. The Armenians, Georgians, 
and Tartars of the Caucasus, united, would have been able to form with 
the greatest ease an army of 700,000 men, by which they would have 
been able to defend the Caucasian mountain ridge against the Russians. 
Meanwhile, the entire Turkish army would have been available to advance 
immediately toward the interior of Asia and join the 18,000,000 Moslems 
of Asiatic Russia. We may safely say, neither Persia nor Afghanistan 
could have remained neutral on seeing such successful achievements by 
the Turks. 

In the course of such events Russia would have been compelled to remove 
the greater portion of her forces to the East and would not have been 
able to protect her Western frontiers as successfully as she did. There- 
fore, quite probably, the Russian collapse would have taken place in the 
summer of 19 15, when the Germans occupied Russian Poland. On the 
other-hand, Great Britain would have been obliged to deflect the greater 
portion of her newly-formed land forces to the East for the protection of 
India, and would have been unable to rush as great a force to the defence 
of heroic France as she actually did. Quite likely, under these conditions, 
neither Italy nor Roumania would have abandoned their neutrality, and 
thus the war might have ended in 191 5 or 19 16 with the victory of the 
central Powers, at least on land. 

It was as clear as day to the Armenians that a Germano-Turkish victory 
could never satisfy their national aspirations. The most that those nations 
would have done for us would have been to grant nominal rights to the 
Armenia of their own choice. But it was very plain to us also that we 
should not have suffered such frightful human losses had we not sided with 
the Allies. We consciously chose this last alternative, namely: we tied our 
fate to the allied victory; we exposed our very existence to danger in order 
to realize the complete fulfillment of our national ambition, that is, to see 
the re-establishment of the United Historic Independent Armenia. 

With our modest means, we have fulfilled our duty in full measure in 
this great struggle in order to save civilization from an impending doom. 
Now it is for our great Allies to act. 

The day is not very far distant when, gathered around the great tribunal 
of justice, the representatives of all the nations of the globe — guilty or 

24 



just— are to receive their punishment or reward at the hands of the four 
distinguished champions of democracy, President Wilson, Premiers Lloyd 
George, Georges Clemenceau, and Orlando. If the representatives present 
themselves in the order of seniority, the first in the rank will be the 
representative of the Armenian people — the aged Mother Armenia. 
Behold ! Into the Peace Congress Hall there enters an old woman, bathed 
in blood, clothed in rags, her face covered with wrinkles 3,000 years old, 
and completely exhausted. With her thoughtful eyes the venerable Mother 
Armenia will survey the countenances of all those present, and thus will she 
address the great figures of the world: 

"Century after century my sons took part in all the strifes waged to 
safeguard justice and the freedom of suffering humanity. Three thousand 
years ago my sons struggled for seven hundred years against the despotism 
of Babylon and Nineveh, which eventually collapsed under the load of their 
crimes. Fifteen centuries ago the Armenians resisted for five hundred 
years the persecutions of the mighty Persian Empire to preserve their 
Christian faith. Since the eighth century my sons have been the vanguard 
of Christian civilization in the East against Moslem invasions threatening 
for a while the very existence of all Europe. If you doubt my statements, 
ask the sacred mountain of Ararat; he will relate to you how all the nations 
and empires, which attempted to possess by criminal means the indisputable 
inheritance of my sons, have received their just punishment. 

"Let us not go very far. Here, before you, stand the representatives 
of those three nations which tried to destroy my sons before your very 
eyes, in order to rule those parts of our ancestral lands, so sanctified by 
blood, known as Armenia. Look at this Turk; it was he who wished to 
wipe the very name of Armenia oft the face of the map; but to-day, foiled 
in his attempt, he stands there a criminal awaiting his sentence. And where 
is to-day the Czar of Russia, who planned to occupy Armenia without the 
Armenians, — the representative of that Empire before which the world 
trembled. And what has remained of the policies of the German Empire, 
in whose hands is the Bagdad railroad now, built at the cost of the blood 
of hundreds of thousands of Armenian women and children? Thus, those 
three modern malevolent empires, which tried to attain happiness through 
the blood of my sons, have received their just punishment. 

"Such will be the fate in the future of all those who shall attempt 
similar crimes against Armenia. This is the message, gentlemen, handed 
down to us through three thousand years of history. 

"I have nothing more to add. I await your verdict with confidence." 



25 



Armenia's Share in the Winning of the War 



LORD ROBERT CECnj 

on October 3, 1918, wrote: 



"In the beginning of the War, the Russian Ar- 
menians organized volunteer forces, which bore the 
brunt of some of the heaviest fighting in the Cauca- 
sian campaign. After the Russian Army's breakdown 
last year, the Armenians took over the Caucasian front, 
fought the Turks for five months, and thus rendered 
very important service to the British Army in 
Mesopotamia. They also captured Baku from the 
Turko-Tartars, and held it from March to July, 1918, 
until the arrival of the British. They served alike in 
the British, French and American Armies, and have 
borne their part in General Allenby's victory in 
Palestine. The services rendered by the Armenians 
to the common cause can never be forgotten." 



EX-PREMIER KEREXSKY 
on August 20, 1918, said: 



"At the outbreak of the War, the Turks cap- 
tured Sary-Kamish, and were marching on Tifiis. 
All the high officials, including the Viceroy, were pre- 
paring for a hasty flight. Of all the races of the 
Caucasus, the Armenians alone stuck to their posts, 
organized volunteer forces and, by the side of their 
Russian comrades, faced the formidable assaults of 
the enemy, and turned his victorious march into a 
disastrous rout." 



GEN. IHSAN PASHA, 

Commander, Right Wing, Turk- 
ish Caucasus Army, July 27, 
1915, said: 



"We were advancing victoriously into the Caucasus 
when, with the intervention of Armenians, the Rus- 
sian right wing was stiffened up. I then ordered a 
fresh army corps to attack the Russian left. But this 
corps was delayed for three days by Armenian vol- 
unteer contingents, and arrived too late to the scene 
of battle to save us from the terrible defeat we 
suffered. T don't blame the Armenians. We gave 
them a bad treatment. But, I must confess that, had 
it not been for the Armenians, we would have con- 
quered the Caucasus. We will do that yet. When 
we do. then the Allies can't win the War. We will 
have India and the whole Mohammedan world on 
our side, which will force Great Britain to send 
armies from the Western front to the East, and thus 
offer Germany the opportunity to overcome France." 



The Russian Armenians were within their right 
to fight the Turks from the beginning; and the 
Armenians of Turkey did not take up arms against 
the Turks until they were attacked. 



GEN. UMAX VOX SANDERS, 

German Commander in Syria, 
following Turkey's surrender, 
said : 



"The collapse of the Turkish Palestinian front 
was due to the fact that the Turks, against my orders 
and advice, sent all their available forces to the 
Caucasus and Azarbaijan, where they fought the 
Armenians." 



GEX. ATjLEXBY, 

Alter Turkey's debacle in Pal- 
estine, telegraphed to President 
American National Delegation, 
Paris: 



"I am proud to have Armenian contingents under 
my command. They fought brilliantly and took a 
leading part in the victory." 



26 






An Official British Statement on Armenia's Role in the War. 

Lord Robert Cecil, writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour, by a letter 
dated October 3, 19 18, and addressed to Viscount Bryce, states that "the 
military contributions which the Armenians have made to the Allied armies 
most assuredly cannot be forgotten," and mentions four points which, he 
thinks, "the Armenians may well regard as 'the charter of their right to 
liberation at the hands of the Allies." 

"One: In the autumn of 1914, the national Congress of the Ottoman Ar- 
menians, then sitting at Erzerum, was offered autonomy by the Turkish 
emissaries, if it would actively assist Turkey in the war, but it replied that while 
they would do their duty individually as Ottoman subjects, they could not, as a 
nation, work for the cause of Turkey and her allies. 

"Two: Following this courageous refusal, the Ottoman Armenians were 
systematically murdered by the Turkish Government in 1915, more than 700,000 
people being exterminated by the most cold-blooded and fiendish methods. 

"Three : From the beginning of the Avar, that half of the Armenian nation 
under Russian sovereignty organized volunteer forces and, under their heroic 
leader, General Andranig, bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting in the 
Caucasian campaign. 

"Four: After the Russian army's breakdown at the end of last year, these 
Armenian forces took over the Caucasian front and for five months delayed 
the Turks' advance, thus rendering important services to the British Army in 
Mesopotamia, these operations in the Alexandropol and Erivan region being, 
of course, unconnected with those of Baku. 

"Armenian soldiers are still fighting in the ranks of the allied forces in 
Syria (10,000 volunteers, principally from America). They are to be found 
serving alike in the British, the French, and in the American armies, and have 
borne their part in General Allen by' s great victory in Palestine." Of the 900 
Armenian volunteers in the Foreign Legion (France), 865 have been killed. 
The Russian Armenians, in addition to volunteer contingents, have contributed 
160,000 men to the Russian army. 

Mr. Balfour, replying to an interpellation by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald 
in the House of Commons on July iith, 191 8, said: 

"His Majesty's Government is following with earnest sympathy and admira- 
tion the gallant resistance of the Armenians (in the Caucasus) in defence of 
their liberties and honour. I would refer the Honorable Member to the public 
statements made by leading statesmen among the Allied Powers in favor of a 
settlement (of the Armenian Case) upon the principle of self-determination." 

Facts and Opinions About Armenia 

Viscount Bryce, on December 19, 19 18 : 

"English friends of America trust that American public opinion, recogniz- 
ing the sufferings long endured by the Armenian people, its fidelity to the 
Christian faith, and the splendid services rendered by its soldiers in the war, 
will heartily support Armenia's claim to complete deliveranc from Turkish 
rule and its own national independence. By its industry, intelligence, and 
education, Armenia is well fitted for freedom and capable of restoring pros- 
perity to its ancient home.'' 

27 



Former Ambassador Oscar S. Straus, on December 13, 19 18 : 

"Turkey has shown her inability to rule her own people, and certainly 
not other nationalities that have come under her bloody yoke. Armenia 
should and must be free, and she should have her ancient country under the 
guarantee that all nationalities shall have equal political and religious 
rights.*' 
Dr. James L. Barton, on A o r jembcr 28, 19 18 : 

"I believe Armenians should be given their independence within the 
boundaries of their historic kingdom, including Russian and Turkish Ar- 
menia and Cilicia. This land belongs to Armenians by right of occupancy 
for centuries, and thev now constitute the only people there morally and 
intellectually capable of self-government and with capacity to develop to 
the full the resources of the country." 

On December 10, 1918, Senator Lodge offered a resolution in the Senate 
in favor of the independence of Armenia, comprising Turkish Armenia (the 
Six Provinces and Cilicia), Russian and Persian Armenias. 
Senator Charles S. Thomas, Democrat, Member Senate Foreign Relations 

Committee, on December 16, 191 8: 

"I heartily approve of the Lodge Resolution, and of every resolution 
which favors Armenian independence." 
Cardinal Gibbons : 

"I am in sympathy with the movement looking to Armenian freedom 
and endorse the views of His Holiness the Pope." 
President Buttei of Columbia: 

"I rejoice beyond expression, that the day has now dawned when there 
is an excellent prospect of their attaining not only freedom, but national 
independence." 

John Sharp Williams : 

"I need no argument to put me on the side of independence for Armenia. 
I am glad to lend the weight of my name, inconsiderable even as it is, to so 
good a cause." 
President Schurman of Cornell: 

"Mr. Balfour's declaration, that The full liberation of Armenia is one 
of the war aims of the Allied Powers,' accords with my own views as to 
the future of Armenia." 
President Hibben of Princeton : 

"I am wholly in sympathy with the end which you desire to realize — the 
independence of Armenia." 
Samuel Gompers : 

"I am thoroughly in sympathy with the cause, the independence of 
Armenia. The Armenian people ought to have the right to dispose of their 

own destiny." 

Bishop T uttle, presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church : 

"The interest and sympathy of my heart are with Armenia in her struggle 

for freedom and independence." 

28 



Lyman Abbott: 

"I am glad to lend my name to this movement with which I am in hearty 
sympathy." 

On November 30, 19 18, the Italian Parliament adopted a Resolution in 
favor of the Independence of Armenia. 

On November 30, 19 18, The Armenian National Delegation, Paris, pro- 
claimed the Independence of Integral Armenia, and placed it under the 
guarantee of the Society of Nations. 

The Hellenic Parliament adopted a resolution in favor of the recognition 
of the independence of Armenia, and conversations are now taking place 
between the Greek and Armenian leaders looking toward the establishment 
of Entente cordiale between Greece and Armenia, of which a specific aim 
shall be the maintenance of peace in the Near East. 

Armenia and the Armenians 

The Armenians, a race of the Indo-European stock, about 1300 years B. 
C, left their original home in Thrace, Southeastern Europe, crossed the 
Bosphorous over into Bythinia, pushed Easterly into Cappadocia, and 
Northern Cilicia, and in about the 8th century B. C. reached the region of 
the mountain of Ararat, where thev founded the State of Armenia.'" 
"Herodotus'; "Plonius" ; "J. De Morgan:' 

King Herachia of Armenia was an ally of Nebuchednezzar in the capture 
of Jerusalem 600 B. C. King Tigranes of Armenia was the ally of Cyrus 
the Great in the conquest of Babylonia and the consequent liberation of the 
Jews from 70 years' capitivity 538 B. C. 

Lnder Tigranes the Great, (fl. 1st Century B. C.) Armenia attained the 
height of her glory and power, and extended from the Caspian to the Black 
Sea and the Mediterranean, from the Caucasus to the Mesopotamian plains, 
with an area exceeding 500,000 square miles and a population of 25,000,- 
000. "Langlois" ; "Lanormant." 

Religion. — Armenia has the first Christian National Church in the world. 
Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew preached the Gospel in Armenia. 
Since, in unbroken succession, the Church has had 137 Pontiffs, whose seat, 
since 309, (with occasional transfers elsewhere) has been at Etch-Miadzin. 
the Great Monastery, in Russian Armenia. 

Of the 4,576,000 of Armenians the world over (in 1912), about 150.- 
000 are, since 1830, under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome; about 
100,000 have joined, since 1847, Protestant denominations, through the 
American missionaries, and the remainder are the adherents of the Apos- 
tolic Church of Armenia. To-day the Church has 100 Bishops and Arch- 
bishops; about 10,000 ecclesiastics of lower rank and 3,909 parishes. 

*The Illyrians, who are the present Albanians, the Phrygians, who have been subse- 
quently merged in the Greeks, and the Greeks were the immediate neighbors of the 
Armenians in Thrace, and they all belong to the same branch of the Aryan family. 

29 



Bertrand Bareilles writes as follows of this Church: 

"In the essentially democratic constitution of the Armenian Church, there 
is inherent a liberality of thought ; and the first thing which strikes us when we 
study the framework of her society is, that her clergy do not form a distinct 
and separate class.'' 

Post-Christian Period. — Following her conversion to Christainity, 
Armenia was in continual death-grapple with the Zoroasterian Persia and 
the ever surging hordes of barbarians from the wilds of Asia. Armenia 
was the highway upon which crossed and recrossed the alien enemies of 
civilization — the Arab, Mongol, Tartar, Turk. The Armenians, isolated 
and separated from the rest of civilization, represented the West in the 
East and fought its first battles. And now exhausted by the swelling and 
pressing tide of the pagan and Moslem forces, they retreated Westerly 
and set up the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia, along the coast of the Mediter- 
ranean in 1080. Here they became the active allies of the Crusaders. But 
with the collapse of that unfortunate movement, they fell a prey to the 
wrath and vengeance of the Mameluke, Sultan of Egypt. King Leon VI., 
after eight months' defense of Sis, his capital, laid down his arms in May, 
1375, and thus ended the independence of Armenia. Armenia was eventu- 
ally divided between Turkey, Russia and Persia. "Dulaurier" ; "Stubbs" ; 
"Neumann." 

Sir Edwin Pears makes the following observations about them: 

"They are physically a fine race. The men are usually tall, well built and 
powerful. The women have a healthy look about them which suggests good 
motherhood. They are an ancient people of the same Indo-European race as 
ourselves, and speak an allied language. During long centuries, they held their 
own against Persians, Arabs, Tifrks and Kurds. Whenever they have had a 
fighting chance they proved their courage. ... A large proportion of them 
remained tillers of the soil. In commerce they are successful not only in 
Turkey, but in France, England and India. Though subject to persecution for 
centuries under Moslem rule (because of their Christian faith, their superior 
intelligence, their industry and thrift), they have always managed to have their 
race respected." 

Language — Literature — Arts — Music. — Villefroi, Dore St. Martin, 
Hubschmann recognize the Armenian as one of the Indo-Germanic langu- 
ages that has attained the highest degree of development, by a varied and 
ancient intellectual culture. 

Sir Henry Norman considers the ancient, mediaeval and modern 
Armenian literature, including works of imagination, novels, romance and 
poetry, comparable to any other literature. 

F. D. Lynch, referring to the architecture of a few of the 1,001 
churches and other ruins of Ani, the capital of Armenia in the 9th century, 
expresses the opinion that the Armenians were the originators of the Gothic 
style of architecture, and further says: 

"These monuments of an ancient civilization leave no doubt that the Armenian 
people may be included in the small number of races who have shown themselves 
susceptible of the highest culture." 

30 



Sir Edwin Pears considers the Armenians as the most artistic and 
musically talented race in Turkey. 

Armenians in Foreign Lands and Under Alien Rule. — During and after 
their independence, many Armenians distinguished themselves, almost in 
every field of the life of the country in which thy settled. 

Nerses, the favorite of Theodora and the Commander-in-Chief of the 
legions of Justinian; Dadarshis, the renowned general of Darius Hystaspis; 
Proersios, the teacher of St. Gregory Nazianzen, of St. Basil, and of Julian 
the Apostate; Isaac, the Exarch of Ravenna, who held sway over Italy 
(625-643) were Armenians. According to Gelzer, it was during the reigns 
of the twelve Armenian Emperors, such as Maurice, Leo, Basil, Zemisces, 
and of Empress Theodora Augusta, that Byzantium reached the zenith of 
her glory and power. 

In 1 4 10, the Armenian nobility fought with the armies of Poland against 
the German invaders, and thus contributed to the victory of Grunwaldt, 
without which "the German deluge would have effaced Poland.'' 

In 1683, five thousand Armenian warriors aided Sobieski in beating back 
the high tide of the Turk invasion from the gate of Vienna, which victory 
saved Europe from the threatened domination of the Turk. 

In 18 12 it was an Armenian General, Prince Pakraduni, that matched 
his skill against that of Napoleon at Moscow, and thus struck the mortal 
blow at the ambition of the Great Emperor. 

During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, of the dozen or more Armenian 
generals in the Russian army, Loris Melikoff was the Commander-in-Chief 
of the Caucasus forces, who subsequently became the Prime Minister of 
Russia and drafted her first constitution. 

According to Lord Cromer, "the Armenians have attained the highest 
administrative ranks, and have at times exercised a decisive influence upon 
the conduct of public affairs in Egypt." 

The first Prime Minister of Egypt, following British occupation, was 
an Armenian. Lucasz, who was the Prime Minister of Hungary in 19 13, 
was also an Armenian. 

Prince Malcolm, one of the first leaders of the Persian reform move- 
ment; Aivazovsky, the greatest marine painter of the 19th century; Althen, 
who introduced to France the cultivation of rubic tinctorum; Manuelian, 
one of the foremost of the histologists of our time; the late Dr. Kassabian 
of Philadelphia, who was one of the leading Roentgen ray investigators 
in the world; the late Governor Thomas Corwin of Ohio, who also at one 
time became Secretary of the U. S. Treasury, belong to the Armenian race. 

/;; Turkey, the Armenians have been one of the principal constructive 
forces, despite the oppressive and obstructive Turk rule, and they have, 
together with the Greek, supplied the Turk with his manifold wants. Even 

31 



the Turkish printing press, the Turkish grammar and the Turkish theatre 
owe their origin to the initiative of the Armenian. 

General Sherif Pasha, the former Turk Ambassador at Stockholm, made 
the following statement in October, 19 1 5 : 

"If there is a race which has been closely connected with the Turk by its 
fidelty, by its services to the country, by the statesmen and functionaries of 
talent it has furnished, by the intelligence which it has manifested in all 
domains — commerce, industry, science and the arts — it is certainly the Armenian." 

Prof. Von Eucken, the foremost German authority on the Near East, 
says of them : 

"Any one who is to some extent acquainted with what the political and 
intellectual history of the Armenian nation, knows with what enormous diffi- 
culties this people of an ancient civilization has had to struggle, and has especially 
to-day to contend with, will be filled with sincere respect for a people who 
could accomplish so much in the midst of all those tribulations." 

Dr. Paul Rohrbach, the well known German Orientalist, writes as 
follows : 

"We may say without exaggeration that not only in Armenia proper but 
far beyond its boundaries the eeonomic life of Turkey rests, in great part, 
upon the Armenians." 

Dr. Barton, Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for 
Foreign Missions, formerly President of the Euphrates College, Armenia, 
writes as follows in the October issue, 19 18, of The World Court: 

"In the modern intellectual revival in Turkey the Armenians were the first 
to respond. They not only eagerly fostered modern education among themselves 
and in their own country, but thousands of bright Armenian young men and 
women have studied in the educational centers of the world and have won 
distinction by the superiority of their intellect and their unconquerable desire 
and zeal for education. There is no race on the face of the earth more worthy, 
by its inheritance, its intrinsic worth, its intellectual capacity and ability, its 
traditional industry, its peaceful temper and spirit, its domestic hopes and 
purposes, of a free and independent existence. In no commercial enterprise, 
no form of industry, no profession, and in no institution of learning in Turkey 
or elsewhere do the Armenians take second place. 

"It was at this race that the blow of destruction was primarily aimed by the 
government of the Young Turks in the winter of 1914 and the spring of 1915. 
This historic, educated and refined people were maltreated in a thousand forms, 
starved and exiled. Its greatest crime is that in contact with its Turkish 
neighbors, it has far outstretched all the rest in enterprise and industry ; and in 
religion it has stood firmly against the persecution of its Mohammedan over- 
lords, refusing to exchange Jesus Christ for Mohammed." 



32 




ARMENIA, AS IT WILL REAPPEAR ON THE MAP. AREA 133,289 SQUARE MILES 
The boundaries of Armenia are as well denned and fixed as those of England. The 
Congress of Berlin (1878), the Ambassadors of the Great Powers at Constantinople (1895), 
and the Ambassadorial Conference at London (1913), reaffirmed, in part, or in whole, the 
boundaries of the Turkish Armenia. Out of a total population of 4,000,000 to 4,500,000 
that there may be within the boundaries of the restored Armenia, over 3,000,000 will be 
Armenian. 



Armenia and the Armenians 

The Armenians, a race of the Indo-European stock, about 1300 
years B. C, left their original home in Thrace, Southeastern Europe, 
crossed the Bosphorous over into Bythinia, pushed Easterly into 
Cappadocia, and Northern Cilicia, and in about the 8th century B. C. 
reached the region of the mountain of Ararat, where they founded 
the State of Armenia. "Herodotus" ; "Plonins" ; "J. Do Morgan " 

Sir Edwin Pears makes the following observations about them : 

*'They are physically a fine race. The men are usually tall, 
well built and powerful. The women have a healthy look about 
them which suggests good motherhood. They are an ancient 
people of the same Indo-European race as ourselves, and speak 
an allied language. During long centuries, they held their own 
against Persians, Arabs, Turks and Kurds. Whenever they have 
had a fighting chance they proved their courage. ... A large 
proportion of them remained tillers of the soil. ' In commerce 
they are successful not only in Turkey, but in France, England 
and India. Though subject to persecution for centuries under 
Moslem rule (because of their Christian faith, their superior 
intelligence, their industry and thrift), they have always man- 
aged to have their race respected." 

Prof. Von Eucken, the foremost German authority on the Near 
East, says of them : 

'Any one who is to some extent acquainted with the political 
and intellectual history of the Armenian nation, and knows 
with what enormous difficulties this people of an ancient civili- 



zation has had to struggle, and has especially to-day to contend 
with, will be filled with sincere respect for a people who could 
accomplish so much in the midst of all those tribulations." 

Armenia's Role in the War 

Lord Robert Cecil, writing on behalf of Mr. Balfour by a letter 
dated October 3, 1918, and addressed to Viscount Bryce, states that 
"the services rendered by the Armenians to the common cause can 
never be forgotten," and mentions four points which, he thinks, "the 
Armenians may well regard as the charter of their right to liberation 
at the hands of the Allies." 

"One : In the autumn of 1914, the national Congress of the 
Ottoman Armenians, then sitting at Erzerum, was offered au- 
tonomy by the Turkish emissaries, if it would actively assist 
Turkey in the war, but it replied that while they would do their 
duty individually as Ottoman subjects, they could not, as a nation, 
work for the cause of Turkey and her allies. 

"Two : Following this courageous refusal, the Ottoman Ar- 
menians were systematically murdered by the Turkish Govern- 
ment in 1915, more than 700,000 people being exterminated by 
the most cold-blooded and fiendish methods. 

"Three: From the beginning of the war, that half of the 
Armenian nation under Russian sovereignty organized volunteer 
forces and, under their heroic leader, General Andranig, bore 
the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting in the Caucasian 
campaign. 

"Four: After the Russian army's breakdown at the end of 
last year, these Armenian forces took over the Caucasian front 
and for five months delayed the Turks' advance, thus rendering 
important services to the British Arm}' in Mesopotamia, these 
operations in the Alexandropol and Erivan region being, of 
course, unconnected with those of Baku. 

"Armenian soldiers are still fighting in the ranks of the allied 
forces in Syria (10,000 volunteers). They are to be found serving 
alike in the British, the French, and in the American armies, and 
have borne their part in General Allenby's great victory in 
Palestine." Of the 900 Armenian volunteers in the Foreign 
Legion (France), 865 have been killed. The Russian Armenians, 
in addition to volunteer contingents, have contributed 160,000 
men to the Russian army. 

Mr. Balfour, replying to an interpellation by Mr. Ramsay Mac- 
Donald in the House of Commons on July 11th, 1918, said: 

"His Majesty's Government is following with earnest sym- 
pathy and admiration the gallant resistance of the Armenians 
(in the Caucasus) in defence of their liberties and honour. I 
would refer the Honorable Member to the public statements made 
by leading statesmen among the Allied Powers in favor of a 
settlement (of the Armenian Case) upon the principle of self- 
determination." 



Representative American Opinion for an Independent 

Armenia 

Cardinal Gibbons : 

"I am in sympathy with the movement looking to Armenian 
freedom and endorse the views of His Holiness the Pope." 

Bishop Tuttle, presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church: 

"The interest and sympathy of my heart are with Armenia in 
her struggle for freedom and independence." 

James W. Gerard, at the American Committee for the Independ- 
ence of Armenia banquet on February 8, 1919: 

"We expect two things to issue from the labors of the Peace 
Conference which is now sitting in Paris. The end of all wars 
and a heaping measure of freedom for all subject nationalities. 
The cause of Armenia is not to be denied. For centuries, 
chained under Turkish barbarism, she has kept alive the flame 
of Christianity. And that is why the greatest force in America 
is standing behind her cause. The Christian churches of this 
country. — the Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, — for Cardinal 
Gibbons is a beloved member of our Committee— and all de- 
nominations of Protestant churches have been insistent in the 
cables that they have been sending to the Peace Conference 
that Armenia must be free. 

"The heart of America, as represented in the churches of 
America, is now pledged to the cause, to further which we meet 
to-night. And it is not alone for that that Armenia deserves 
freedom in this war. She has had no small share in the 
winning of it. Armenians — Russian subjects — fought on tbe 
Caucasus front. Armenians fought with General Allenby in 
Palestine. And General Allenby says that they contributed in 
no small degree to the success of his operations. Witnesses 
from the other side, — Ihsan Pasha of the Turkish Army, and 
General Liman von Sanders, the German Commander who was 
sent to Turkey, both bear witness to the fact that it was the 
fighting power of the Armenians that contributed to the break- 
ing of the power of Turkish rule. Such constancy in faith, 
such bravery in war, should not go unrewarded ; and that is why 
we in America are demanding as a Guarantee of good faith from 
the Peace Conference in Paris, the freedom of Armenia, of a 
great Armenia, stretching from the Black Sea to .the Medi- 
terranean." 

Charles Evans Hushes, at the American Committee for the In- 
dependence of Armenia banquet : 

" We have always been the friends of the 

Armenians, admiring their industry, their intellectual alertness, 
their keeness, their sobriety, their aptitude for education and 
affairs: and we have revolted at the thought of such a people 
being under the yoke of the Turk. 

"Now, we rejoice that the hour of liberation has come. The 
vain ambition of brute force has overreached itself and has 
resulted in the emancipation of the down-trodden and oppressed 



of centuries. There is to be a settlement of this long account 
and the credit balance is to be found in the opportunity for a 
free and independent life. 

"There is no doubt of the capacity of the Armenians for 
freedom. They are as capable of self-government as any people. 
They have shown a racial solidarity and a capacity to survive 
incredible misfortunes ; they have rare intelligence, and no people 
prize more highly the advantages of education. Even in the 
midst of suffering, they have proved their capacity. Despite 
their persecution, their ability has made them essential even to 
Turkish administration and they have furnished the brains of 
the Ottoman Empire All they need is a fair opportunity, that 
decent opportunity which only civil and religious liberty can 
provide. 

"We propose to-night to throw such influence as we have into 
the scale for Armenian independence. . . ." 
William Jennings Bryan, at the American Committee for the 

Independence of Armenia banquet: 

"If any people have earned the right to be free and inde- 
pendent, masters of their own destiny and sovereigns in control 
of their own government, it is the Armenians. For more than 
two thousand years they have maintained their existence amidst 
difficulties and under hardships that would have crushed a weaker 
people into the dust. They have not only preserved their race 
integrity and ideals, but they have been the heralds of the democ- 
racy founded by the Xazarene. Theirs has been "a voice crying 
in the wilderness" — but their day is here even though the dawn 
of that day has been reddened by the blood which they so freely 
shed. The high character of the Armenians in the United 
States compels us to respect the country from which they came." 

Former Ambassador Oscar S. Straus, on December 13, 1918: 
"Turkey has shown her inability to rule her own people, and 
certainly not other nationalities that have come under her bloody 
yoke. Armenia should and must be free, and she should have 
her ancient country under the guarantee that all nationalities 
shall have equal political and religious rights." 

Dr. James L. Barton, on November 28, 1918: 

"I believe Armenians should be given their independence 
within the boundaries of their historic kingdom, including Rus- 
sian and Turkish Armenia and Cilicia. This land belong-; to 
Armenians by right of occupancy for centuries, and the} now 
constitute the only people there morally and intellectually capable 
of self-government and with capacity to develop to the full the 
resources of the country." 

President Butler of Columbia : 

"I rejoice beyond expression, that the day has now dawned 
when there is an excellent prospect of their attaining not only 
freedom, but national independence." 

John Sharp Williams : 

"I need no argument to put me on the side of independence 
for Armenia. I am glad to lend the weight of my name, incon- 
siderable even as it is, to so good a cause." 



The American Committee 



FOR THE 



Independence of Armenia 

ONE MADISON AVENUE 
NEW YORK CITY 



JAMES W. GERABB, chairman 

CHARLES STEWART DAVISON. Vick-Ohaikmak 

WM. HENRY ROBERTS. DD., LLD., secretary ge^'i. 



Charles Evans Hughes 
William Jennings Bryan 
Alton B. Parker 
Tames Cardinal Gibbons 
Rt. Rev. P. N. Rhinelander 
Henry Cabot Lodge 
John Sharp Williams 
Charles S. Thomas 
Lyman Abbott 
James L. Barton 
Charles J. Bonaparte 
Nicholas Murray Butler 
Rt. Rev. J. H. Darlington 

Cleveland H. Dodge 

Charles W. Eliot 

Rt Rev. William F. Faber 

Admiral Bradley A. Fiske 

Lindley M. Garrison 

Martin H. Glynn 

Samuel Gompers 

Madison Grant 

Albert Bushnell Hart 

Sara Duryea Hazen 



Myron T. Herrick 

John Grier Hibben 

George A. Hurd 

Richard M. Hurd 

Henry W. Jessup 

Robert Ellis Jones 

Edward C. Little 

Julian W. Mack 

Norman E. Mack 

William T. Manning 

Elisabeth Marbury 

Rt Rev. Wm. H. Moreland 
Frederic Courtland Penfield 

George Haven Putnam 
Jacob Gould Schurman 
Oscar S. Straus 
Charles S. Thomas 
Rt Rev. A. C Thompson 
Rt' Rev. B. D. Tucker 
Rt Rev. Wm. W. Webb 
Benjamin Ide Wheeler 
Everett P. Wheeler 
Rt Rev J. R. Winchester 



niiiiii BRftRY 0F C0NGRESS 

009 800 869 A 4 



